My Newfound Confidence: or, How I Answered the Phone

Today, I did something I have not done in YEARS.  I answered the phone!

You would think this is an exaggeration, but it's not really.  We always have Caller I.D., and if you are not my brother, my husband, or my mom, I probably will not answer the phone for you.  I don't answer the phone if I don't recognize the number, I never call anyone (except the aforementioned people), half the time I won't answer the phone even if I DO recognize the number, for fear of not being able to probably communicate.

You see, I don't know that it's that I ever really thought myself stupid, just ill-prepared.  One (at least, this one) never wants to come across as confused, now does one?  So it's better to not answer the phone, let that person state their business on the answering machine (or better yet, email), then I can think about it and decide the correct thing to say.  At that point I will either email them in response, or I'll make my husband call them back and give them the answer they need.

Well, over the past two days we have had this little repairman drama going here.  See, it all goes back to our buying our house in September.  The house advertised these great perks, the one in capital letters being, "IRRIGATION SYSTEM!"  Sweet, sprinklers!  I'm not all about lawn pride, so honestly I didn't care that much, but the husband thought it was pretty cool.  So we move in, and we can't turn them on.  Oh, and did I mention we get this letter from our water company telling us we need the backflow tested (whatever the hell THAT means)?  Well, we got that letter right after we moved in, and with all else going on I kind of ignored it.  And since we couldn't figure out how to turn it on anyway, it didn't seem to really matter much.  Husband was a little annoyed, but it was almost fall anyway, so we just didn't worry about it....  And now it is spring.

We get ANOTHER letter from the water company telling us we must report our test results to them.  So we have the city's water guy come out, and he tells us that he doesn't know how to turn them on, and when we figure it out we should call him back and he'll test it for us.  Now, Husband and I are kind of lazy people sometimes, and very confused most of the time, so this whole process has already taken a couple of months.  We finally call an independent repair guy, who was supposed to come look at it yesterday.  And didn't.  And Husband, who originally set all this up, is out of town.  So it all falls on me to deal with.  So I actually CALLED to find out where he was!  This is pretty huge for me, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  I received a call back yesterday from a "cellular call" (which I NEVER answer) and yeah, I totally answered that.  Then I did the same thing again this morning.  I'll tell you what, I felt so capable all of the sudden!

I'm not quite sure if this burst of confidence has come from the fact that Husband is out of town and I have no other choice, or if I have my pride in myself in general.  My college degree symbolizes so much for me.  I was a smart girl growing up, then I grew up, and then I was stupid.  I made mistakes and fell into a life I didn't want.  I was working retail and watching many people whose IQs were about half of mine make good on their lives.  They went to college, got degrees, and started careers (most of them as teachers-- not sure what that's about).  And here I was making them coffee.  (Side note: I LOVE making coffee. Nothing brings me greater joy than working in the coffee business, and I know in my heart of hearts that's where I want to be, and, God willing, I'll be there again someday.)  They looked down on me, and I looked down on myself.  I was so ashamed of myself for letting my life get so out of control.  It's one thing to CHOOSE to make a career out of selling coffee or books or some other form of retail, it's quite another when you're doing it because no "real" job will take you.

Then I met and married my husband.  And I thought, "it's OK, I don't need a degree. I don't want to work, I just want to be a wife and mother."  So true.  Not working is the best.  I love being a wife, though I suck at keeping up with laundry and dishes, and I really love being a mother.  But I still didn't feel complete.  I loved to read, I loved to learn, I could hold my own in conversations on many intellectual subjects.  But I was very self-concious.  I had that "what, you think you're better than me?" defense going on.

I admitted to myself that I went back to school for two reasons: 1) all I ever did was read books anyway, I might as well get some credit for it, and 2) we all need a backup plan.  You just never know what will happen in life.  I have a secure relationship with my husband, and I don't plan on him leaving me anytime soon, but you just never can tell what will happen.  I was pretty sure that going back to an $8 an hour retail job wasn't going to cut it should I ever need to be the provider for my family.  Having a degree provides me with some better options.  But what I actually got was so much more.  A sense of pride I haven't had since I was in high school.  The belief that I can accomplish anything I set out to do.  The knowledge that no one is better than me just because they have a little piece of paper and I don't.

OK, now of course there's some of you that will say they never were better than me, and that having a diploma means nothing, and on some levels I can totally agree with you.  But for whatever fucked up psychological reason, that's how I felt before, and this is how I feel now.  And I feel good enough to answer the phone.  And that's pretty damn good.